Every now and then, I like to jump on here to share my latest haul of freebies.
I don’t get sent lots of stuff for free but it comes semi-regularly. I also get a few invites to dine with restaurants in exchange for sharing on my social media. I’ve included a few of those opportunities in this latest roundup.
First up, my mate Mirel and I were invited to try the menu at Holy Carrot. This swanky vegan restaurant is in the even swankier neighbourhood of Knightsbridge.
The menu is inventive and it was nice to have a change from burgers and fries. No, I haven’t gone off fast food but I do appreciate a change now and then.
Click on the original post below to scroll through out food photos.
If you don’t wanna wait until I get myself in order to post on here, the quickest way to see what I’m getting given for free is to follow me on Instagram.
Hey! How about a fun and informative wild food class that also raises funds for a crucial vegan charity?
Read more.
Saturday 18th December 2021
10:30am – 12:30pm
Cost
£40 (£30 concession/£12 unwaged). All proceeds help fund the Made in Hackney community meal service which continues to provide free nutritious, tasty meals to households struggling to access food.
Location
Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, Southern Grove, Mile End, London E3 4PX (a short walk from Mile End Tube Station in E3)
Join wild food enthusiast, Ken Greenway, for a foraging experience at the amazing award-winning Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, one of London’s Magnificent Seven Victorian Cemeteries. Closed to burials since 1966 and a designated public park and Local Nature Reserve, the park has an extraordinary diversity of both woodland and meadow plants.
The event will include:
A guided walk to safely identify wild foods and enjoy samples of the plants along the way
Tips on where and how to forage
Learning to identify edible plants
Take samples home to turn into your own wild creations
Information on the health benefits of wild foods
Opportunity to ask Ken questions
Digital foraging info recommended by the park supplied after the walk
Numbers limited to 15 with Covid-19 safety guidelines in place
Ken Greenway is site manager of THCP and is also an accredited Humanist celebrant, Horticulture Manager for Grounded Ecotherapy and the course leader on Forage London’s event ‘Wild Food, Wild Nature’. Ken studied Environmental Biology at the University of Greenwich and has worked at THCP since 2002 where he has developed his intimate knowledge of the site as well as his passion for wild food and foraging. Ken is also a Come Dine with Me winner!
Fee: £40 (£30 Concession/£12 unwaged*) inclusive of VAT. Please come weather-prepared (the class will not be cancelled in case of wet weather).
Doesn’t this all sound wonderful?
Learn about foraging from an expert AND raise funds for this community kitchen that works hard to feed vulnerable people in our community.
I recently told you about a new vegan cooking guide called RootyFuel.
Available as a 7-day e-book or a 31-day fully supported collection of videos and recipes, RootyFuel is designed to help you get to grips with down to Earth vegan cuisine.
It has been designed to help vegan and vegan-curious cooks learn what works best for them in their own kitchens.
To celebrate the end of a competition I was running for RootyFuel (winner announced soon), I am thrilled to be sharing their recipe for vegan saag aloo.
Be sure to follow RootyFuel on Instagram and head to their website to see if their curses are right for you or a friend.
Saag Aloo
Serves 2
Ingredients
300g new potatoes
150g baby spinach leaves
200g frozen peas
4tbsp tinned coconut milk
1 red chilli
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 knob ginger
2 cloves garlic
1 vegetable stock cube made with 150ml boiling water
1 tsp nigella seeds
1/2 tbsp curry powder
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1/2 tsp of ground tumeric
1tbsp coconut oil
Method
Slice the new potatoes into quarters then Boil for 10 minutes or until cooked Place the spinach in a colander and pour boiling water over to wilt then run under cold water
Once the spinach has cooled squeeze the water out of it
Cook the peas according to packet instructions
Place the coconut oil into a pan with the cumin seeds on a medium heat for 2 minutes or until they become fragrant
Add the ginger and garlic, curry powder and turmeric, tomato paste and coconut milk (just use the film milk from the top of the can
Add the cooked peas and potatoes
Cook for 3-4 minutes then add the spinach
Cook for 2 minutes
Serve with nigella seeds and fresh sliced chilli on top
Are you interested in delicious, down-to-Earth, and easy to make vegan food?
If you answered YES you will be very interested to learn more about @rootyfuel and their practical vegan cooking courses that take the guesswork out of plant-based food preparation.
AND I am also giving away two copies of the @rootyfuel 7 Days of Plant Power e-book so stick around until the end.
Rootyfuel is an interactive online cooking school that equips you with all the tools and support you need to become a confident vegan food creator in your own kitchen.
Available as a 7-day e-book or the full 31-Days of Plant Power course, Rootyfuel gives you easy-to-follow recipes, video tutorials, shopping lists, and meal plans that will make bringing plant-based meals into your life easier than you thought.
It’s a vegan cooking course that will get you up to speed with preparing vegan breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks without leaving your own kitchen!
Follow @Rootyfuel to find out how you can subscribe to either the 7 or 31 day courses. Both courses would make a perfect gift.
COMPETITION
I am giving away a copy of the 7-Days of Plant Power e-book to one winner and their friend! Read the rules below and get entering.
To enter:
– Follow both @fatgayvegan and @rootyfuel on Instagram – Tag a friend in the comments under this post – Enter multiple times by tagging a different account each time
T&Cs:
– Winner and their tagged friend will be picked at random by @fatgayvegan to receive a copy of the 7-Days of Plant Power e-book – All entrants must be over 18 – Closing date is midday on Monday 22nd November and the winners will be contacted within 24 hours
Learn to cook irresistible yet simple vegan food with @rootyfuel
If you hang around these parts of the Internet often, you will probably know that I have been doing some work with legendary vegan fast food business Temple of Seitan.
I really couldn’t have picked a better time to be aligned with the London eatery as they have just released a brand new version of their vegan chicken and it is truly sensational.
You will be blown away by this stuff.
You might be thinking that there was no room for improvement when it came to the Temple of Seitan chicken, but they have somehow managed to take it a few levels higher.
Rebecca has been working on this new recipe for a long time and has been unstoppable in her determination to create the best vegan chicken on the planet.
She has succedded.
The new recipe uses significantly less wheat gluten than the original recipe, making it lighter and more chicken-like. The pieces actually tear like chicken and the texture and taste are both incredible. So succulent.
I also find that because it is lighter, I am able to eat more of the stuff. I love that!
You gotta get along to one of the Temple of Seitan locations ASAP to get your paws on the new recipe chicken. All their locations and opening hours can be found on their website.
You can also follow Temple of Seitan on Instagram.
Do you wanna support independent women in business and eat delicious vegan food?
You need all this news!
Lady Lane Catering Co and The Canvas are proud to bring you Lady Lane Kitchen: a veritable pop-up feast running until the end of 2021. The kitchen is taking over The Canvas Cafe five nights a week, and is is all about sharing cultures, empowering women, sustainable lifestyles, and great food.
The cooperative brings together six women from all different backgrounds who tell a story of their love, their lives, and their dreams through their food. Launched in October, feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and the pop up kitchen is set to stay for the rest of the year.
They are now going to be running Tuesday-Saturday from 6pm, and in December will shake up the menu to offer a selection of dishes called ‘What we eat at Christmas’.
These women set up Lady Lane Catering Co in 2020 and they haven’t even let a pandemic stop them. They have persevered and have made it to this stand out London pop up, even as other hospitality businesses are struggling. It’s not been easy. Childcare, budgeting, and schedules could get in the way of a thriving business, but these women are excelling.
The strong women are coming together through a love of food, a fierce drive to succeed, and a vision to bring their family and heritage recipes to more people.
Flavour and passion abound in a menu featuring Caribbean, South Asian, Persian, Mediterranean and Somalian food from a group of single mums and super women.
Leila is a single mother who has created a Caribbean menu in her kitchen and is quick to point out the parallels between cultures; “Pilau rice is used in Caribbean cooking too – food shows us that we’re not so different after all!” Leila runs Munchbreaks, an eclectic multicultural catering service from the heart of East London (a bit like the person behind it). She says that it’s about community and caring for them.
Woin Ethiopic Kitchen is passionate about making traditional Ethiopic food 100% vegan and has created her business to create high quality, plant based menus, full of rich flavours.
Aseel’s Kitchen was started 5 years ago by Sophia, a mother of four lovely children. Providing for her family and friends great quality and scrumptious food has always been a point of great joy and pride and she specialises in providing great flavoursome dishes from the southern Mediterranean, Levant and Arabian Peninsula kitchens. She says that “cooking isn’t just about serving food, but sharing your story” and hopes to do jus that through her tasty menu.
Dadu’s Kitchen LDN opened in 2019 as a way of spreading love and joy through full bellies! Syeda, a mother of 6, and a grandmother, has had over 40 years of experience cooking a wide range of Bangladeshi foods, using aromatic spices from the south of Asia. Her passion is to extend the joy and love for her food beyond her family and friends, with a vegan twist! She says that “cooking isn’t just about serving food, but sharing your story” and hopes to do jus that through her tasty menu.
Amiira started making her own hot sauce Basbaas (which means chilli) after she lost her job in 2017. She noticed there was a gap in the market for Somali foods and condiments, and decided to use this downtime to launch her own business, as it had always been a dream of hers.
Ruth Rogers, founder and owner of The Canvas says: “The pop up was originally planned to run for a month, but we’ve seen just how transformative it has been. From customers saying they never realised vegan food could be inspired by cultures around the world, to the growth in confidence the women have found, we’re delighted they’re staying around a bit longer.”
Lady Lane Kitchen is a cooperative of women in partnership with business and government:
● Tower Hamlets Council
● The Canvas – East London Profit for Purpose Cafe hosting the pop up
● Heura Foods – proactive vegan meat brand who are donating products for the ladies’ menus
● Lady Lane Market – London’s first women-led market, in east London
Click here to see the exact location of The Canvas thanks to Google Maps.
Follow The Canvas cafe and event hub on Instagram. You can also follow The Lady Lane Kitchen on Instagram.
Book your table for one of these wonderful pop up dining experiences… or all of them!
The Tuesday October 26, 2021 episode of my podcast is live online.
Listen to me rant about restaurants using the term plant-based when they aren’t vegan, why Las Iguanas has terrible nachos, and probably a few other things that I can’t recall because I complain all the time!
Listen now.
FGV mini news round up December 28, 2022 – final of the year –
Fat Gay Vegan
As the year ebbs away join me for a chat about the tough task of going home, Whitney Houston, and vegan food on QANTAS planes.
